life between the pages

“I spent my life folded between the pages of books.In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.” ― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

Sunday, October 07, 2012

In this short novel, Willa Cather paints a disturbing portrait of a woman caught in the social grip of her times. At once a fiercely independent, charming free spirit and an obedient member of the quietly patriarchal backbone of Victorian society, Marian "Maidie" Forrester elicits both derision and sympathy from today's readers, as she did from the young male narrator of her story. We wonder if we could have performed any better on the stage where Mrs. Forrester found herself. I would be willing to bet that few would.

This story is an insider's view, told in the language and attitudes of the late nineteenth century, and is highly recommended for students of Women's Studies and Social History.